December is one of the most difficult times to get seats to India, so if you are paying for this out of your own pocket and do not want to spend a fortune, book now! Definitely try and do this through an ethnic agent specializing in the South Asian market. There are plenty of them in Toronto.

OW is a bit thin when it comes to India, so you will have to compare BA to offers from carriers in other alliances. In OW itself you can also go on Cathay Pacific, that would be a circuitous journey from YYZ with stopovers in HKG and BKK.

If you want to be creative and the price is reasonable, you could also try flying on BA to Dubai, and then pick up Cathay Pacific from there to Bombay (they fly a route HKG-BKK-BOM-DXB and vice versa).

Well, if your final destination is chennai and not BOM, you can take LH as they have a daily!! direct flight FRA-MAA (though they aren't part of one world).BA only flies to MAA twice a week.
(ALL this information from LH/BA website).
If you want BOM, almost every European country flies there.
You can even try LYYYZ-TLV-BOM. I know TLV isn't that popular for connections, but on the 2 times I did TLV-BOM, there were many europeans on the flight, as LY offered a better price Europe-TLV-BOM than directly Europe-BOM....

Quoting B747-437B (Reply 4):I'll wager even money that they will be allocated the extra frequency under the new bilateral to go daily to Chennai.

oh indeed

Quoting Anthonyd (Thread starter):I'd prefer using One World carriers as I am AA plat and would have lounge access with oneWorld. BA would be the obvious choice but I was wondering if there is anything else?

Since u are an AA Platinum member, I would only recommend you BA to India from YYZ. Phone this agent Onkar Travels in YYZ 416 966 9000 and speak to Charles or Neesha...dont give my name though!!! They have v good deals to the Subcontinent all year round and are good to do business with.

You should try and be a frequent flyer member of at least 2 airline groupings such as One World and either Sky Team or Star Alliance to broaden your options.

Sky Team to India has AF-KLM-NWA-KE-DL
One World has BA-CX
Star Alliance has LH-AC-OS-SQ-TG and soon LX.

Delta starts JFK-CDG-MAA flights from this May and from YYZ u fly AF to CDG and than DLCDG-MAA-CDG but its nothing great. BA is the best airline amongst LH and DL to fly to MAA from YYZ with tvs in every seat + newer B 772ERs etc...plus who doesnt like a few hours of plane spotting at Heathrow